Argumentative Essay On The Columbus Day

The holiday of Columbus Day has kindled an irrefutable amount of controversy in recent years. One side of this bilateral argument asserts that Columbus opened up a global trade network while the other declares that his travels led to the decimation and abuse of the Native American population. One argues that Columbus Day should exist, while the other calls for its removal. However, this argument, along with the current Columbus Day, is overly simplified. To extract the true meaning of Columbus Day, Columbus himself must be withdrawn from the center of the holiday, and the holiday should recognize both the positive and negative results of October 12th, 1492. Primarily, in light of the abuse, death, and cultural eradication that the Native Americans were forced to suffer through as a consequence of Columbus’s voyage, Columbus Day cannot be celebrated the way it is today. Notably, the population of Native Americans is estimated to have dropped from a quarter million to a few hundred in just a few short decades (Bergreen 301). While Europeans caused many of these deaths unwittingly by carrying diseases to the Americas that the Native Americans had no resistances to, far too many deaths were caused by deliberate “torture, wholesale slaughter, and ‘the harshest and most iniquitous and brutal …show more content…
For example, from a certain point of view, the benefits of Columbus might overshadow the negatives. However, that point of view constitutes a holiday that frequently ignores the negatives, devaluing Native American societies. Another dispute is that without abolishing Columbus Day completely, there is no way to utterly eliminate the Eurocentric ideal of his voyages that is celebrated annually. However, rather than wholly eliminate one side, the holiday should celebrate the connection of the Old and New Worlds. Preservation of the holiday allows for the appreciation of both European and Native American cultures before and after